Raphel's Sistine Madonna (1513)

The funny thing about this picture is that the little angels down in the bottom are by far the most famous part of this painting; many people thinking that this is a full painting itself.

Other striking aspects to this painting are the cloth draping shadows and highlights and the colors themselves.

I thought that we would further our look at colors by blending them in a color wheel. We used the page that came with our Renaissance History Portfolio, but you could easily make one by drawing two triangles in the center of two circles as shown below.

As they blended the colors, they learned which colors were primary, secondary and tertiary.

The primary colors are put in the one triangle, with their colors also where the triangle points touch the outer circle. The secondary colors are put in the second triangle, with those colors also in the outer circle where those points touch. The tertiary colors are painted in the outer circle between the primary and secondary sections.